When he graduated from Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego, Christopher Adlesperger's family was there to show support. And after he was killed in combat in Iraq, the family gathered at the hometown airport in Albuquerque to await the arrival of his body. On Friday, his extended family assembled again, this time at Camp Pendleton, where they accepted a Navy Cross awarded to him posthumously.

Like many of its characters, "Black Book" is engaged in acts of deception. It appears to be an old-fashioned World War II movie, but that turns out to be a ruse. As epic as its two-hours-and-25-minute running time indicates, "Black Book" is as subversive as it is traditional, both enamored of conventional notions of heroism and frankly contemptuous of them.

Lucie Aubrac, a hero of the French Resistance who helped free her husband from the Gestapo and whose dramatic life story became a successful French film, has died. She was 94. Aubrac, whose maiden name was Lucie Bernard, died Wednesday in a hospital in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux, where she spent the last two months, said her daughter, Catherine Vallade. French President Jacques Chirac called Aubrac an "emblematic figure," saying "a light of the Resistance has gone out."

Poland's Senate unanimously passed a resolution honoring Irena Sendler, who saved nearly 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis by organizing a ring of 20 people to smuggle them out of the Warsaw Ghetto in baskets and ambulances. The resolution also honors the Council for Assisting Jews, of which her ring of mostly Roman Catholic members was a part.

In the battle at Thermopylae in 480 BC, the plucky and outnumbered Spartans put up a valiant fight against the massive army of Persian invaders. But at the box office over the weekend, there was no contest for "300," the film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel about the celebrated Greek battle. The movie broke records with ticket sales of $70 million in the U.S. and Canada, according to Sunday's estimate from studio Warner Bros.

Re "A military wife's battle is lost here at home," Column One, March 3 We would like to believe that the lives of our soldiers fighting for us overseas are ones of heroism and grandeur. However, this article challenged that ideal by explaining that the lives of the military are far from it. A lot of those overseas are young, and many have young families waiting at home for them. However, what are the conditions in which they are waiting? It is unfortunate to read that a 25-year-old mother, the wife of one of our heroes, has struggled with depression and methamphetamine use. One has to ask, would this have happened had the husband stayed at home?

A 16-year-old was credited with saving the lives of his mother and sister Wednesday when he grabbed an extendable staircase and led them from the second-story balcony as a fast-moving fire engulfed their Santa Ana home. Armani Rodriguez, sleeping in his ground-floor bedroom, was awakened by the smoke alarm about 2:30 a.m. He heard his mother screaming from the balcony. The indoor stairway was already ablaze, said Ben Gonzalez, spokesman for the Santa Ana Fire Department.

On what would have been the 25th birthday of Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham, President Bush said Friday that the Marine would be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest decoration for valor. Dunham, from Scio, N.Y., was 22 when he died from his wounds in April 2004, eight days after using his body and helmet to save two fellow Marines from an insurgent's grenade.

A City Council panel recommended Friday that the late Guy Gabaldon receive a Medal of Honor from Congress for heroism during World War II. Gabaldon, a native of East Los Angeles, died in Florida in August. As a Marine in the South Pacific, he was credited with capturing more than 1,500 troops, including more than 800 on a single day during the Battle of Saipan in 1944.

His family in the Midwest never doubted that R.J. Mitchell II would do whatever was necessary to protect his fellow Marines in Iraq. "We were concerned about him, of course, but we always knew he'd take care of himself and the men under him," said Bill Raiser of Lamoni, Iowa, Mitchell's maternal grandfather.